Eastern Bank

The Boston community bank and a fintech called Monit have developed an app that helps small-business owners forecast their cash flow and how certain events could affect them.

Eastern Bank in Boston could raise as much as $1.7 billion to spend on acquisitions and technology investments that it says will be necessary to respond to customers' increasing preference for digital tools.

Numerated, vendor of loan prospecting, marketing and underwriting software that was developed within Eastern Bank, now has $32 million.

In the past few years, APIs have become a surprisingly hot topic, considered by many as a golden key to open banking and innovation.

Thanks to big tech companies, the business world is moving to third-party platforms, or online marketplaces where sellers pull buyers' products off digital shelves. A growing number of financial institutions — including BBVA, Citi and community banks like Eastern — say they can't afford to sit out the trend.